The present invention relates to brushes, and specifically to brushes which are primarily adapted for uses such as scrubbing, stripping, polishing or buffing a surface. A particular application relates to brushes for use on floor maintenance machines of the type used in commercial, institutional and industrial floor maintenance applications. In such machines, one or more cleaning brushes or pads are attached to the machine and rotated by the machine to perform the desired maintenance operation.
A wide variety of machines are presently available for scrubbing, stripping, polishing or buffing a surface, and many of the surface treatment machines are adaptable to provide any combination of the above treatments when provided with the appropriate types of brushes. Therefore, any particular surface treatment machine may be used with several types of brushes, with the type of brush varying with the desired surface treatment. Because of the variety of possible applications for brushes used on surface treatment machines, a large number of brushes are often kept in stock by the user. The brushes are typically changed at frequent intervals, either to replace a worn brush or to provide a different surface treatment. Replacement of worn brushes is an especially important factor in commercial situations because commercial surface treatment machines are used to perform a variety of surface treatments. The versatility of many surface treatment machines thus requires that brushes be easily replaced or substituted, either when switching from one type of surface treatment to another, or when replacing a worn brush.
Previously, brushes used on surface maintenance machines have included a relatively rigid and heavy support disk to which the brush bristles are mounted. The brush bristles are fixed to the disk by inserting a bundle of bristles forming a loop into a blind or throughhole provided in the support disk, and the bundle of bristles is fixed to the disk by means of nails, staples, pins or stitching. The brush bristles are typically arranged to cover the full face of the brush, often leaving only the central portion of the brush face free of bristles.
The support disks to which the brush bristles are fixed are typically adapted to be detachably secured on a mounting member which, in turn, is adapted to be mounted on a surface maintenance machine. Prior arrangements have generally included the use of various nut and bolt or bracket plate fastening systems. Such attachment means typically require inversion of the surface treatment machine to replace or remove a brush, making brush replacement difficult. Additionally, a wide variety of attachment means are used by brush manufacturers, so the mounting member (attached to the treatment machine) must often also be changed when changing to a different type of brush. Finally, the support disk and attachment means are often shaped such that the brush assemblies are difficult to store. For example, the brush assemblies are not easily stacked upon one another, and they are large and require a large storage area.
A need thus exists for a brush assembly which may be adapted to provide a variety of surface treatments when used with a surface treatment machine and particularly when treating uneven surfaces. There is also a need for a brush assembly which is easily interchangeable with other brushes on the surface treatment machine. Preferably the brush assembly also weighs less and is easier to store than currently available brush assemblies.